Cheney gay rights split mirrors GOP's

Liz Cheney’s public feud with her gay sister over same-sex marriage has laid bare the disconnect between party elites in Washington — many of whom have jumped on the gay marriage bandwagon — and the activists who drive the primary contests.

The plain reality is that the conservative base remains overwhelmingly opposed to gay marriage, even as general public opinion and the sentiment of the party establishment have dramatically shifted toward acceptance. That shift may be even more pronounced by 2016 or 2018. But for now, Cheney has calculated, probably correctly, it would be too risky for a Republican running in a heated Wyoming Senate primary to be anything but firmly against same-sex marriage.

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The saga, which prompted a rare joint statement from Dick and Lynne Cheney backing Liz Cheney, began on Sunday. Liz Cheney said on Fox News that she supports “the traditional definition of marriage,” drawing strong rebukes from Mary Cheney and her wife, Heather Poe, on Facebook. Trying to rebut charges that Liz Cheney’s position is driven by politics, the elder Cheneys said in their statement that she has always been against gay marriage.

But the candidate, challenging Sen. Mike Enzi in next August’s primary, is still taking fire from a chorus of social conservatives for opposing a federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. A conservative super PAC has spent $140,000 on ads this fall calling Liz Cheney weak on the issue.

Many national Republicans have adopted the mantra that the issue should be left to the states, but the fact is that only three sitting GOP senators have actually come out in support of gay unions: Ohio’s Rob Portman, who has a gay son, and Illinois’ Mark Kirk, a moderate from a blue state; and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski.

The intra-family squabble captures the spectrum of the gay marriage debate in America: there’s a gay married couple; a GOP candidate seeking to bolster her socially conservative credentials; and an establishment Republican, Dick Cheney, who has broken with the base [and for that matter Liz Cheney] by going on record in support of gay marriage.

Republican strategist Whit Ayres said the Cheney clash is “symptomatic” of America’s divide on gay marriage.

“Everybody has been reconsidering their view on this issue,” he said. “It doesn’t mean everybody has changed their minds, but a great many people have reconsidered their views. When a couple as rock-ribbed conservative as Dick and Lynne Cheney can have a gay daughter; a former chair of the RNC [Ken Mehlman] announces he is gay, that makes a great many people—even very conservative people—take a second look at the issue.”

Kristen Soltis Anderson, a GOP pollster who supports gay marriage, said in an email that gay marriage is not a litmus test for Republicans, “even in a Republican primary,” because economic issues are foremost in voters’ minds. What could cause problems for Cheney, she said, is if the recent developments steal the spotlight.

”The big threat to Cheney’s campaign over this controversy is less about the position she takes and more about how this will dominate the conversation rather than any ideas she might bring to the table to improve the economy for the people of Wyoming,” she said.

On the other side of the GOP social issues spectrum, some conservatives worry that the more-moderate consultant class is pushing too hard for what former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels once called a “truce” on social issues. American Principles in Action — a group affiliated with the super PAC that’s been targeting Cheney on gay marriage — recently released a report criticizing the Republican National Committee for encouraging a bigger-tent approach to issues like gay marriage, and urging Republicans to go to bat on social issues.

Social conservatives looking at Wyoming see an opportunity to do just that. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who runs the American Principles Fund that’s been running ads against Cheney, acknowledged that the economy and jobs will remain top voter concerns. But she argued that marriage is an important gut-check test.

“A candidate’s position on the social issues sends a very clear message about whether or not that candidate shares their values,” she said. “If they don’t, it can be fatal in a primary and carry over into a general.”

Ralph Reed, who leads the Faith and Freedom Coalition, predicted that the fight over gay marriage will be analogous to the GOP fight over abortion in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when some tried unsuccessfully to remove the pro-life plank from the party platform. He predicted that 75 to 80 percent of 2016 GOP primary voters will still oppose gay marriage.